Italian priests have declared their willingness to “open the church doors of every single parish” to people expelled from reception centres as an anti-immigration law from Italy’s rightwing government threatens to make thousands homeless.

The so-called “Salvini decree” – named after Matteo Salvini, the interior minister and leader of the far-right League – left hundreds in legal limbo when its removal of humanitarian protection for those not eligible for refugee status but otherwise unable to return home was applied by several Italian cities soon after its approval by parliament earlier this month.

The Catholic church expressed its profound disapproval immediately after the vote.

The Vatican’s position is “very clear”, its secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said last week. “You don’t leave migrants in the street … A profound sense of solidarity must prevail. You cannot put people in this position. You must always focus on people and their rights.”

According to Italy’s ministry of the interior, between 2016 and 2017 Italy provided humanitarian protection to 39,145 asylum seekers, who under the Salvini decree risk being made homeless within weeks.

In early December, a letter announcing the expulsion of 50 people was sent to the reception centre in Mineo, Sicily: the largest in Europe after the Moria camp in Greece. The bishop of Caltagirone, Monsignor Calogero Peri, said he was prepared to provide 40 beds in nearby facilities owned by the church to welcome people who risk expulsion.

“And if there are not enough beds? I have already spoken with other bishops: we will open the church doors of every single parish under our control,” he said. “It’s not a question of politics. It’s a matter of protecting individuals. Imagine this: in Italy now it is a crime to abandon dogs, but it is not a crime to abandon people. Even worse, abandoning men, women and children is now the law.”

That the Catholic church would have to bear the brunt of taking in increasing numbers of migrants was expected back in August, when Salvini blocked the arrival on Italian soil of 177 migrants onboard the Italian coastguard vessel Ubaldo Diciotti.

Salvini forced the migrants, for the most part Eritreans, to remain onboard the ship for more than a week until other EU nations had agreed to take them. In the end, the church put an end to the crisis by pledging to provide assistance to 100 migrants who were being held on the ship. “The church has opened its heart and its wallet,” Salvini said.

When police arrived at the reception centre in the southern Italian province of Crotone to force out a Nigerian family and their six-month-old baby, Father Rino Le Pera, the regional director of the Catholic charity Caritas, drove them himself to a new home.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he told the Guardian. “They were about to put a six-month-old child on the street. Six months old! Can you imagine? When they told me, I drove right the way there with my car and found a place for the family. If necessary, I would have made my own home available for them.”

The 24 asylum-seekers in Isola Capo Rizzuto were the first migrants expelled after the approval of the Salvini decree. “We are prepared for the worst and made already available beds and rooms run by the church in Crotone when the authorities will expel more migrants from the reception centres,” says Rino.

According to data provided by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) and published in the Catholic inspired daily Avvenire, the church has already taken in 25,000 migrants in its facilities since 2017, financed in part by EU funds allocated for refugees and forwarded to the ministry of the interior; whereas about 2,700 asylum seekers have been assisted under Vatican funding alone.

In the Ballarò neighbourhood of Palermo, Father Enzo Volpe, a Salesian priest, has spent the last seven years in the streets of the Sicilian city in prayer alongside Nigerian sex workers and victims of sex trafficking, such as Blessing, a Nigerian girl expelled from the welcome centre in Isola Capo Rizzuto.

“Leaving these girls in the street, victims of sex trafficking, is not only inhumane, it also means facilitating the work of criminal organisations,” he told the Guardian. “With no protection, these girls risk becoming easy prey for Italian criminal organisations.”

Italian priests are no strangers to adopting strong-armed measures. In the small Tuscan town of Vicofaro, in the province of Pistoia, Father Massimo Biancalani has welcomed migrants in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he has provided beds and sleeping bags for dozens of people who spent the night inside the parish.

Massimo incurred the wrath of Salvini, but Pope Francis sent a letter of solidarity to the priest. “Keep taking people in. I’m with you,” he wrote.